The Trail to Yesterday

“Odd, ain’t it?” remarked the parson, after he had concluded.

“That’s a queer angle,” repeated Dakota. “You got the license?” he inquired softly. “Mebbe you’ve lost it.”

“I reckon not.” The parson fumbled in a pocket, drawing out a folded paper. “I’ve got it, right enough.”

“You’ve got no objections to me looking at it?” came Dakota’s voice. Sheila saw him rise. There was a strange smile on his face.

“No objections. I reckon you’ll be usin’ one yourself one of these days.”

“One of these days,” echoed Dakota with a laugh as strange as his smile a moment before. “Yes – I’m thinking of using one one of these days.”

The parson spread the paper out on the table. Together he and Dakota bent their heads over it. After reading the license Dakota stood erect. He laughed, looking at the parson.

“There ain’t a name on it,” he said, “not a name.”

“They’re reckonin’ to fill in the names when they’re married,” explained the parson. “That there rider ought to have knowed the names, but he didn’t. Only knowed that the man was called ‘Baldy.’ Didn’t know the bride’s name at all. But it don’t make any difference; they wouldn’t have had to have a license at all in this Territory. But it makes it look more regular when they’ve got one. All that’s got to be done is for Baldy to go over to Dry Bottom an’ have the names recorded. Bein’ as I can’t go, I’m to certify in the license.”

“Sure,” said Dakota slowly. “It makes things more regular to have a license – more regular to have you certify.”

Looking at Dakota, Sheila thought she saw in his face a certain preoccupation; he was evidently not thinking of what he was saying at all; the words had come involuntarily, automatically almost, it seemed, so inexpressive were they. “Sure,” he repeated, “you’re to certify, in the license.”

It was as though he were reading aloud from a printed page, his thoughts elsewhere, and seeing only the words and uttering them unconsciously. Some idea had formed in his brain, he meditated some surprising action. That she was concerned in his thoughts Sheila did not doubt, for he presently turned and looked straight at her and in his eyes she saw a new expression – a cold, designing gleam that frightened her.

Five minutes later, when the parson announced his intention to care for his horse before retiring and stood in the doorway preparatory to going out, Sheila restrained an impulse to call to him to remain. She succeeded in quieting her fears, however, by assuring herself that nothing could happen now, with the parson so near. Thus fortified, she smiled at Dakota as the parson stepped down and closed the door.

She drew a startled breath in the next instant, though, for without noticing her smile Dakota stepped to the door and barred it. Turning, he stood with his back against it, his lips in straight, hard lines, his eyes steady and gleaming brightly.

He caught Sheila’s gaze and held it; she trembled and sat erect.

“It’s odd, ain’t it?” he said, in the mocking voice that he had used when using the same words earlier in the evening.

“What is odd?” Hers was the same answer that she had used before, too – she could think of nothing else to say.

“Odd that he should come along just at this time.” He indicated the door through which the parson had disappeared. “You and me are here, and he comes. Who sent him?”

“Chance, I suppose,” Sheila answered, though she could feel that there was a subtle undercurrent in his speech, and she felt again the strange unrest that had affected her several times before.

“You think it was chance,” he said, drawling his words. “Well, maybe that’s just as good a name for it as any other. But we don’t all see things the same way, do we? We couldn’t, of course, because we’ve all got different things to do. We think this is a big world and that we play a big game. But it’s a little world and a little game when Fate takes a hand in it. I told you a while ago that Fate had a queer way of shuffling us around. That’s a fact. And Fate is running this game.” His mocking laugh had a note of grimness in it, which brought a chill over Sheila. “Just now, Miss Sheila, Fate is playing with brides and bridegrooms and marriages and parsons. That’s what is so odd. Fate has supplied the parson and the license; we’ll supply the names. Look at the bridegroom, Sheila,” he directed, tapping his breast with a finger; “this is your wedding day!”

“What do you mean?” Sheila was on her feet, trembling, her face white with fear and dread.

“That we’re to be married,” he said, smiling at her, and she noted with a qualm that there was no mirth in the smile, “you and me. The parson will tie the knot.”

“This is a joke, I suppose?” she said scornfully, attempting a lightness that she did not feel; “a crude one, to be sure, for you certainly cannot be serious.”

“I was never more serious in my life,” he said slowly. “We are to be married when the parson comes in.”

“How do you purpose to accomplish this?” she jeered. “The parson certainly will not perform a marriage ceremony without the consent of – without my consent.”

“I think,” he said coldly, “that you will consent. I am not in a trifling mood. Just now it pleases me to imagine that I am an instrument of Fate. Maybe that sounds mysterious to you, but some day you will be able to see just how logical it all seems to me now, that Fate has sent me a pawn – a subject, if you please – to sacrifice, that the game which I have been playing may be carried to its conclusion.”

Outside they heard the dog bark, heard the parson speak to it.

“The parson is coming,” said Sheila, her joy over the impending interruption showing in her eyes.

“Yes, he is coming.” Still with his back to the door, Dakota deliberately drew out one of his heavy pistols and examined it minutely, paying no attention to Sheila. Her eyes widened with fear as the hand holding the weapon dropped to his side and he looked at her again.

“What are you doing to do?” she demanded, watching these forbidding preparations with dilated eyes.

“That depends,” he returned with a chilling laugh. “Have you ever seen a man die? No?” he continued as she shuddered. “Well, if you don’t consent to marry me you will see the parson die. I have decided to give you the choice, ma’am,” he went on in a quiet, determined voice, entirely free from emotion. “Sacrifice yourself and the parson lives; refuse and I shoot the parson down the instant he steps inside the door.”

“Oh!” she cried in horror, taking a step toward him and looking into his eyes for evidence of insincerity – for the slightest sign that would tell her that he was merely trying to scare her. “Oh! you – you coward!” she cried, for she saw nothing in his eyes but cold resolution.

He smiled with straight lips. “You see,” he mocked, “how odd it is? Fate is shuffling us three in this game. You have your choice. Do you care to be responsible for the death of a fellow being?”

For a tense instant she looked at him, and seeing the hard, inexorable glitter in his eyes she cringed away from him and sank to the edge of the bunk, covering her face with her hands.

During the silence that followed she could hear the parson outside – his voice, and the yelping of the dog – evidently they had formed a friendship. The sounds came nearer; Sheila heard the parson try the door. She became aware that Dakota was standing over her and she looked up, shivering, to see his face, still hard and unyielding.

“I am going to open the door,” he said. “Is it you or the parson?”

At that word she was on her feet, standing before him, rigid with anger, her eyes flaming with scorn and hatred.

“You wouldn’t dare to do it!” she said hoarsely; “you – you – ” She snatched suddenly for the butt of the weapon that swung at his left hip, but with a quick motion he evaded the hand and stepped back a pace, smiling coldly.

“I reckon it’s the parson,” he said in a low voice, which carried an air of finality. He started for the door, hesitated, and came back to the bunk, standing in front of Sheila, looking down into her eyes.

“I am giving you one last chance,” he told her. “I am going to open the door. If you want the parson to die, don’t look at me when he steps in. If you want him to live, turn your back to him and walk to the fireplace.”

He walked to the door, unlocked it, and stepped back, his gaze on Sheila. Then the door opened slowly and the parson stood on the threshold, smiling.

“It’s sure some wet outside,” he said.

Dakota was fingering the cylinder of his revolver, his gaze now riveted on the parson.

“Why,” said the latter, in surprise, seeing the attitudes of Dakota and his guest, “what in the name of – ”

There came a movement, and Sheila stood in front of Dakota, between him and the parson. For an instant she stood, looking at Dakota with a scornful, loathing gaze. Then with a dry sob, which caught in her throat, she moved past him and went to the fireplace, where she stood looking down at the flames.

CHAPTER IV

THIS PICTURE AND THAT

It was a scene of wild, virgin beauty upon which Sheila Langford looked as she sat on the edge of a grassy butte overlooking the Ute River, with Duncan, the Double R manager stretched out, full length beside her, a gigantic picture on Nature’s canvas, glowing with colors which the gods had spread with a generous touch.

A hundred feet below Sheila and Duncan the waters of the river swept around the base of the butte, racing over a rocky bed toward a deep, narrow canyon farther down. Directly opposite the butte rose a short slope, forming the other bank of the river. From the crest of the slope began a plain that stretched for many miles, merging at the horizon into some pine-clad foothills. Behind the foothills were the mountains, their snow peaks shimmering in a white sky – remote, mysterious, seeming like guardians of another world. The chill of the mountains contrasted sharply with the slumberous luxuriance and color of the plains.

Miles of grass, its green but slightly dulled with a thin covering of alkali dust, spread over the plain; here and there a grove of trees rose, it seemed, to break the monotony of space. To the right the river doubled sharply, the farther bank fringed with alder and aspen, their tall stalks nodding above the nondescript river weeds; the near bank a continuing wall of painted buttes – red, picturesque, ragged, thrusting upward and outward over the waters of the river. On the left was a stretch of broken country. Mammoth boulders were strewn here; weird rocks arose in inconceivably grotesque formations; lava beds, dull and gray, circled the bald knobs of some low hills. Above it all swam the sun, filling the world with a clear, white light. It made a picture whose beauty might have impressed the most unresponsive. Yet, though Sheila was looking upon the picture, her thoughts were dwelling upon another.